1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device that selects a timbre.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2013-080149, filed Apr. 8, 2013, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In electric musical instruments such as an electric bass (hereinbelow simply called a bass), a timbre selector is sometimes provided that changes the timbre of a tone presented by a signal detected by a pickup (hereinbelow called a pickup signal) to various timbres (for example, a timbre that suppresses the high range and emphasizes the low range).
FIG. 9A is a circuit diagram that shows the constitution of a timbre selector of related art. The timbre selector shown in FIG. 9A includes filters 41, 42, and 43 that change the timbre of the tone that the pickup signal presents, and a switch 50 that has three fixed contacts 51, 52, and 53 and one moving contact 54. The output terminals of the filters 41 to 43 are respectively connected to the fixed contacts 51 to 53 of the switch 50. The switch 50 is for example a lever switch (see, U.S. Pat. No. 2,503,885) in which a moving contact 54 moves together with a lever not shown. The lever of this switch 50 has a position at which the moving contact 54 is connected to the fixed contact 51, a position at which it is connected to the fixed contact 52, and a position at which it is connected to the fixed contact 53. In this timbre selector, a pickup signal is supplied to the filters 41 to 43, and the output signals of the filters 41 to 43 are respectively supplied to the fixed contacts 51 to 53 of the switch 50. The user connects the moving contact 54 with a desired contact among the fixed contacts 51 to 53 by moving the moving contact 54 by operation of the lever. The moving contact 54 outputs the output signal of the filter supplied to that desired fixed contact.
FIG. 9B shows another constitution that changes the timbre of a tone that a pickup signal presents. The device that is shown in FIG. 9B includes filters 61 and 62 that change the timbre of a tone that the pickup signal presents, and a variable resistor 70. The variable resistor 70 has a fixed resistor 71, and a slider 72 that makes contact with the fixed resistor 71 and that enables a user to slide the contact position. The output terminals of the filters 61 and 62 are connected to both ends of the fixed resistor 71. With this constitution, the pickup signal is supplied to the filters 61 and 62, and a signal that is a composite of the signal that has passed through the filter 61 and the signal that has passed through the filter 62 is output from the slider 72 of the variable resistor 70. By sliding the slider 72 between both ends of the fixed resistor 71 to change its position, it is possible to change the composition ratio of the signal that has passed through the filter 61 and the signal that has passed through the filter 62. As a result, it is possible to steplessly alter the timbre of the tone that the signal output from the slider 72 presents in a range between the timbre of the tone that the signal that has passed through the filter 61 presents and the timbre of the tone that the signal that has passed through the filter 62 presents.
However, in a timbre selector that has the switch 50 shown in FIG. 9A, there is the problem that it is not possible to obtain a greater variety of timbres than the number of filters 41 to 43 that are connected to the fixed contacts 51 to 53 of the switch 50.
The device that is shown in FIG. 9B has the problem in which, when the position of the slider 72 of the variable resistor 70 is changed to another position, it is difficult to correctly return it to the original position, and so the reproducibility of a timbre is poor. Also, this device has a constitution that connects the filters 61 and 62 to both ends of the fixed resistor 71 in the variable resistor 70. For this reason, there is the problem of the number of filters being limited to two, and increasing the number of filters being difficult.